


Go ahead and take care of business for me

by another_Hero



Category: Ocean's (Movies), Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Alcohol, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gen, everybody wants to protect amita, it's gross but it's not explicit, the guy Amita was dating is a teacher who was sexting a student, they don't all always do a good job
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-12 05:03:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15332379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/another_Hero/pseuds/another_Hero
Summary: Amita can tell from Nine Ball’s voice—she even lowered it—that yes, this is that guy she’s been dating, and Nine Ball knows it, and given that they’ve only been in the same room for about three minutes, she can assume it’s something bad enough to save for Thursday night dinner so she could tell her in person.EDIT: this stopped midway through before, fixed now





	Go ahead and take care of business for me

“Hey Amita, come here.”

“Yeah?”

“This that guy you been seeing?”

Amita can tell from Nine Ball’s voice—she even lowered it—that yes, this is that guy she’s been dating, and Nine Ball knows it, and given that they’ve only been in the same room for about three minutes, she can assume it’s something bad enough to save for Thursday night dinner so she could tell her in person. Amita had figured the guy was okay—he was a teacher—but here in the room with her gang of criminal friends, it seems absurd that she hasn’t even googled him.

But whatever Nine Ball has, she wouldn’t have found it on Google. This is pages of text, and Amita doesn’t much care where she got it, because she reads a couple of the highlighted ones, and they’re pretty garden-variety sexts, but whoever they’re being sent to—the same number over and over—isn’t really having it. “I figured it was an old girlfriend,” Nine Ball says, “but I checked it out and it’s a student.”

Amita cringes, her whole body. Her hands come to her shoulders come to her ears. “Ew,” she says. “Ew, ew, ew,” and Constance jumps up to see what she’s talking about, and Daphne looks up from her phone, and Debbie pauses on the stairs, and Lou looks up from the kitchen.

“Yiiiiikes,” says Constance. “You gotta fuck him up.”

“What’s going on?” says Daphne.

“Sorry,” says Nine Ball, “I had to tell you, you know.”

“Yeah,” says Amita, because she may be mad it’s true, but she’s glad she knows about it, “yeah, thanks.”

“ _What’s_ going on?” says Daphne.

“Amita’s boyfriend is a _creep_ ,” says Constance. “He’s sexting his student.”

“Oh, god, Amita,” says Daphne, and she’s jumping up and giving Amita a hug, which is nice and wow she’s softer than she looks, and yes, Amita would appreciate more opportunities to hug Daphne, but it’s maybe not entirely necessary at this moment? She indulges in it before she says, “I’m okay, really. I’m a little more worried about his students.”

“You guys ready to eat?” Debbie calls.

It turns out everyone must be bored in their new, ridiculously wealthy lives, because they’re all extremely invested in making this guy’s life hell. “We should fill his house with memes,” Constance says. “Take all his pictures and put memes over them.” Lou finds this very funny for some reason—Amita wouldn’t have thought Lou would even know what a meme was—and Amita laughs too, picturing Andrew’s apartment with picture frames full of memes. She has no idea whether he actually owns picture frames; Nine Ball works fast, and Amita takes it slow. But she can appreciate Constance trying to cheer her up.

And Daphne says, “If you need to be seen dating a movie star, I can make that happen.” Amita giggles at the idea, and then she says, “Wait, you mean you, right? Not, like—”

“Is there someone you’d like better?” Daphne’s arching her eyebrows, though, not looking offended. Amita wonders whether she knows the answer, but no, this is a game, they’re cheering her up.

Amita tries for joke flirting, too, though she’s not sure her “Of course not” quite carries it off. Daphne grins, though, which is good enough.

“I’m serious, though, we can like, get dinner, or go shopping, if you want, and kiss in front of somebody with a camera. Just say the word.”

And because her friends are trying so hard to cheer her up, and because dinner with Daphne would be fun, kissing or no, Amita says, “Sure, yeah, that’d be fun.”

 

The conversation has drifted and come back to the Fuckface when Debbie says, “But this guy, is he still teaching?”

Amita’s been wondering what to do about that, but Nine Ball says, “I told the school.”

“Thanks,” Amita says, and Nine Ball gives her this little salute.

Debbie nods, but she says, “Are you sure you’re going to be safe? I mean, this guy’s a creep, and you’re going to dump him, right?”—Amita nods vigorously, and Constance says, “You should just ghost”—“I’m just worried that if he gets fired at the same time you broke up with him, he might think you had something to do with it.”

“I mean, technically he wouldn’t be wrong,” Amita says.

“Y’all gotta vet everyone you date for hacker friends,” Nine Ball agrees seriously.

“I’m just saying, if you need a place to stay, you come here,” Debbie says, Lou nodding behind her. Privately, Amita hadn’t been worried until Debbie brought it up, and she sort of wishes she hadn’t. But she nods, and thanks them, and the conversation moves on to Constance’s new place, and Nine Ball’s new place, and Amita’s phone vibrates once in her pocket.

It’s from Daphne: _Saturday, Marlow, 8pm?_ Amita looks up and Daphne has this coy grin on her face, and she does this little eyebrow raise that may as well be a wink, and shit, Amita’s in it now. She texts back a single brown thumbs-up emoji—usually she’s a triple-emoji texter, but she’s not sure how that would work just now—and flashes her the closest she can to a regular smile and looks across the table at Lou’s plate while she tries to think of something to ask Nine Ball about the plans she’s working on. Daphne replies: _Already got reservations_ , with two fucking fireworks emojis, which is simultaneously innocuous and Too Much, and Amita’s eyes widen just a little as she laughs, and Debbie says, “Do you two have something you’d like to share with the class?”

“We’re just planning our date,” says Daphne, overenunciating the last word, and Debbie raises her eyebrows a fraction at Amita but otherwise everybody kind of just nods and goes back to trying to convince Nine Ball—Amita is pretty sure they’re trolling, but who can be sure—that she ought to have shuffleboard as well as pool at Nine Ball’s. Because the date is fake, and everybody knows it, and she would do well to remember it too.

 

So she has two days to stress about a fake date at which she will be expected to do some combination of holding hands, kissing, and making conversation with Daphne Kluger. About half her wardrobe is custom-made now she can afford it, so she never worries about looking good in her clothes, but now she needs to find something she hasn’t already worn out with everyone. And she’s gotten pretty good at first-date conversation, but this isn’t really first-date conversation, and she can’t think of anyone she can text without revealing that she’s nervous, and really, she’s just going to embarrass herself. She tries to just guess what her friends would say if she asked them what to talk about on a fake first date with Daphne. Constance: “Shrimp,” or something else equally arbitrary. Debbie: “Maybe about how you want to have several of her babies?” Nope. Nine Ball: “Just talk.” Unhelpful. Rose: Amita’s not about to start taking advice from Rose. Lou: “Just compliment her clothes and then she’ll tell you all about them. Then compliment her hair and she’ll tell you all about it.” Her mental Lou is kind of rude, apparently, but maybe also right. Tammy: “Are you sure the date is fake?” But Tammy wasn’t there when they planned it, and also this is the version of Tammy invented by Amita’s brain, so she ignores that too.

Andrew texts her every hour or two before Saturday, even calls once or twice, until finally she picks up the phone and says, “I’m done with you,” and hangs up, which isn’t usually her style, but she really can’t talk to him, and this way at least he’ll know. Saturday she doesn’t put a bra on all day because her navy dress is an off-the-shoulder one and she’ll wear it with a bustier and she doesn’t want any lines. It’s going to be fine. They’re friends.

She gets to the restaurant at 8 exactly, then stands outside the window for five minutes because she knows Daphne and she is not the punctual type. But then Daphne comes out the door in this red dress and says, “Standing me up?”

Amita frowns and laughs, shaking her head, and says, “I didn’t think you’d be here yet.”

Daphne frowns too and says, “But you’re always on time,” and then she blushes, and she looks around and waves lightly to a photographer across the street, and she takes Amita’s hand and leads her inside.

Once they’re back at the table, Daphne says, “You look amazing, did I say that already?” and Amita warms and says, “You too, I love your dress,” and Daphne does, in fact, tell her all about it, and someone brings the bottle of wine Daphne already ordered and pours them both glasses and asks what they want and they have to laugh and say they aren’t sure yet and if this were a date, it would be going well.

When they’re done with dinner and walking together down the street, Daphne pulls her into an alley and says, “So there’s a chick out there with a camera, my publicist called her, so anything we do out there, people are going to know about. Which, I mean, is the point.” Right. “But I just wanted to get squared away, do you want to—I don’t want to push anything on you, this is your revenge, and I’m very behind that. We can hug good night if you want, are you good with kissing?”

“Kissing’s, yeah,” Amita says, “it’s—probably more effective.”

 “Right,” Daphne says, and her look turns inward for a second, then back on Amita at full power. “Right, can we just try—” And she reaches out and by the time her hand is on Amita’s neck, she gets it, she’s leaning, turning her face up, and it’s a pretty small kiss and both their tongues stay where they belong but still, Amita’s putting about a third of her energy into remembering how to stand up, which never seemed this complicated before.

Daphne pulls back and she’s looking down with this small soft smile on her face, and then she looks up at Amita and the smile gets brilliant and bright, and she puts her hand on Amita’s waist and they’re walking out of the alley and Amita knows it’s a camera smile but she can’t help returning it. And Daphne ducks her head a little at that, and impulsively—they’ve only taken, what, three steps—Amita takes the opportunity to kiss her while she can reach, and Daphne laughs, she maybe actually _giggles_ , and then she tugs at Amita’s waist, and yep, they’re making out on the sidewalk, and this she can handle, she reminds herself they’re in _public_ , there are _cameras_ here, and after a minute Daphne pulls back, hails a cab for Amita, kisses her hard right up against it, opens the door, and says “See you Thursday” with a smirk like she knows exactly what she’s done.

“Was that—” says the driver.

“Do not talk to me,” says Amita.

 

When she gets to dinner that Thursday night, the coffee table at Lou and Debbie’s place is covered in gossip magazines. Rose looks up from one. “You and Daphne?” she says, looking a little surprised, which is kind of rude but probably fair.

“Debbie,” Amita calls, “did you do this?”

Lou comes out smirking and carrying a tray of glasses. “Have a good time?”

“You looked hot,” Debbie calls, emerging from the kitchen with an assortment of bottles.

“I was out with Daphne. Nobody looked at _me_.”

“No,” says Daphne from the door, which, shit, “you looked hot.”

Amita arranges her face and sits down on a couch, and Daphne immediately grabs a handful of the magazines—“Did you get copies of these for all of us?” she asks Debbie, looking at the pile on the table, amused—and sits down right next to Amita, her knees practically in Amita’s lap, the front of her shoulder pressing into the side of Amita’s and their arms lined up, so they can look together. “Usually I don’t do this,” she says, and her face is so close Amita has to look away, and she expects Daphne to say something else, something starting with “but,” but no, just _usually I don’t do this_ and then she’s flipping through _Us Weekly_ and saying, “That’s pretty good, don’t you think?” while she slides the _Daphne’s New Gal Pal?_ page in front of Amita’s face. There they are grinning at each other and oh, God, Amita really looks totally enamored; there they are just kissing on the sidewalk like teenagers; there they are kissing against the taxi, and it looks as scandalous here as it felt. When Amita doesn’t take the magazine, Daphne drops it in her lap and reaches for _People_ , and this time she says a little _oh_ , and she points to a picture of them in the alley, one they hadn’t known anybody would take. Does Daphne look a little nervous there, reaching for her? And Amita looks embarrassingly inviting, and she’s about to let herself wonder why Daphne made that sound about this picture when Constance comes in, stops, points between the two of them on the couch, and says, “I thought this was a fake thing.”

Amita can feel herself tensing up, about to say that she was _not_ the one that arranged them like this, but Daphne looks up with the amusement that is the ordinary tone of conversations in the warehouse and says, “You want to see the pictures?” She hands the magazine over, and Constance says, “Oh, that’s cuuuute. You gonna send copies of all these to the Fuckface?”

“To who now?” Rose asks.

“Can you go explain this to Rose?” Daphne asks Constance, and then to Amita, “You want anything?” and she’s pouring herself wine from the pile on the table.

“Oh, uh, sure.”

“Cool but,” Daphne says, with a gesture at all the bottles, “what do you want?”

Amita could not be doing worse at this. “Um, wine? Whatever’s open.” Daphne hands her the glass she’s already poured and pours another and yeah, their hands touch, and yeah, Amita’s entire body is screaming. And Daphne leans back on the couch slumped a little lower, and yeah, her head is on Amita’s shoulder, and Amita’s starting to think she must be doing this on purpose when Nine Ball comes in and says, “Hey, he got suspended from his job, they’re looking into it,” clapping twice.

Amita nods. She’s relieved about that, she’s relieved for those girls, but she doesn’t really want to think about it. “Thanks,” she says.

“Oh, yeah,” Constance says, “also Lou and me put memes all over his apartment.”

“Wait, what?” Amita says.

“I mean, Lou did the breaking in, but I picked the memes.”

“He didn’t actually have very many picture frames,” Lou says. “I had to leave some of them on his fridge.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Constance says. To Amita, she says, “They were all memes about how he’s a fucking creep.

“You _broke into his apartment_?”

“Yeah dude. He can’t get away with this shit.”

“He’s not getting away with it! He literally got suspended from his job!”

“Not that shit, the lying to you shit.”

“Constance!” Amita very nearly yells, “please do not break into people’s houses on my behalf!”

“Dude,” Constance says, but Lou puts her hand up.

“You’re right, Amita,” she says. “It wasn’t your style. We should have asked.” Amita is a little thrown by the concept of Lou apologizing, or almost apologizing, but she nods.

“It’s okay,” she says, and Daphne puts a hand on her leg, which, okay, that’s new.

“Can I steal his phone?” Constance asks, and once Amita laughs, everyone else laughs, too, and when they’re done the air is clear and Daphne’s hand is still there, and when Constance says, “I’m serious,” Amita just tells her she’d better figure out what she’s going to do with it first.

 

Daphne comes and finds her again after dinner, when they’re all a few drinks in and Lou has beaten Nine Ball in the last round of their impromptu arm wrestling tournament. “So,” she says, “shopping Saturday?”

“Yeah, okay,” Amita says.

“I’ll pick you up? I’ll make some appointments.”

“Yeah.”

This time Daphne can hear Amita’s relative lack of enthusiasm. “Is there something wrong?” she asks.

It’s one thing to like her own body; it’s another thing to have this conversation with a literal movie star. “It’s just—I don’t know where you go,” Amita says. “Can you just make sure they have my size? I mean”—she’s rambling, but she can’t stop herself—“most places do,” and now she’s judging herself for talking about not being _too_ fat, but she wants to make it easy on Daphne, “but I don’t know, sometimes cute boutiques and stuff have really narrow size ranges, you know? So just—” She stops talking.

Daphne looks a little surprised. “Of course,” she says. “Thanks for mentioning it, though, I wouldn’t have thought to check. That’s embarrassing.” And when she sees Amita’s expression: “For me! _You’re_ perfect. _I’m_ embarrassed. I’ll have my assistant ask when she makes the appointments.” She doesn’t actually ask what size Amita wears, so Amita is going to hope for the best from Daphne’s assistant.

“Thanks,” she says.

“Of course,” says Daphne, and it’s more natural this time. “Hey, I gotta head out, early morning, but I’ll see you then.” Amita nods, smiling, and Daphne kisses her cheek, perilously close to her neck, and waves at her and the rest of them without looking back as she leaves.

When the door closes, the room goes silent. “So, uh,” says Constance, “I thought this was a fake thing?”

“I thought so too!” Amita says.

“I’m texting Daphne,” says Constance, pulling out her phone.

“Oh god, please don’t.”

“What did we just agree about not doing things for Amita’s benefit that Amita doesn’t want?” Lou says.

“I’m not doing this for Amita’s benefit,” Constance says. “She doesn’t have to read it. But I gotta know.”

“I _hate_ you,” says Amita, and then, when Constance’s phone makes the screaming sound she’s chosen as a text alert tone, “What did she say?”

“Up to Amita?” Constance reads. “There’s a question mark there, that’s how she said it.”

Amita covers her face with her whole arms. “Are you _actually_ kidding me?”

 

Shopping with Daphne Kluger is different in two fundamental ways from shopping alone. The first is not specific to Daphne: like any good shopping friend, Daphne tells her she looks good, pretty, really nice, or _damn_ at least every few things she tries on. Amita’s pretty sure Daphne gets told she’s beautiful several times every day before breakfast, but she’s honest about the clothes. One time she even laughs, though she tries not to be mean about it, and Daphne looks a little offended until she looks in the mirror, says “Fuck,” and turns around for Amita to unzip her. The second way is that in every place, they’re the only people in the store, with the staff helping only them. Amita is more used to this now that she has her clothes made custom, but those meetings are businesslike, without the leisurely fun of shopping, without the chance to see the clothes on her own body. It’s easy to see how a person like Daphne would become, well, a person like Daphne. But she’s as attentive with Amita as everyone else is with her, asking about grading jewels and what shows she watches and cooing over the photos of her new baby niece, touching her a little more often than she needs to, even when nobody is nearby. She’s the one who suggests fucking _waffles_ when they’re done, who insists on walking Amita home, and when they’re standing on the doorstep and Amita, feeling like a coward, says, “See you Thursday?” she’s the one who says, “Are you free Wednesday night?” Amita nods. “Cool,” she says, “you bring yourself, I’ll bring the pie.” And after all of that, she’s still standing there, so Amita asks to kiss her.

“Fucking _finally_ ,” says Daphne, and she kisses her, and then she says, “I’m sorry, that was rude,” and then she kisses her again.

 

Wednesday a text comes in from Nine Ball that the Fuckface, as they've all started calling him, has been fired, and Amita is feeling pretty good. Daphne has raspberry pie, which is always a winner at the loft, and two bottles of wine, and inexplicably, a documentary about the ocean playing silently. “Yeah,” she says when Amita asks about it, “I don’t know why I thought that would be funny.” She steps in close and waits for Amita to touch her, and when a hand finds her back, she adds, “Making out in front of the sharks.” She looks so pleased when Amita actually laughs at this that Amita blushes and turns back to the pie.

“So like,” she says, “are we putting this on plates, or are we just going at it?”

“You’re my dream girl,” Daphne says, and she stabs holes in the top crust and fills them with canned whipped cream, and then she says, “Okay, this might be hard to eat on a couch. Table? Coffee table? Floor?”

“Coffee table?” says Amita, because it looks pretty narrow, and she stretches her feet out toward Daphne while they gossip their way through the first half of the pie and the first bottle of wine, ignored by the muted fish, knocking their knees together to flirt, and then they discuss their plans for the evening—Amita is a little awkward at this kind of discussing, but she takes her cues from Daphne and tries to actually let herself say what she’s thinking—until the table between them becomes an impediment. So it’s late when Amita leaves Daphne’s, an hour when most people awake have more important business than bothering strangers, and she assumes the person on her steps is just drunk. She’s going to go around to the alley and let herself in the back when they call her name, and shit, it’s Andrew the Fuckface.

She calls Lou, because Lou and Debbie are the closest ones to her and Lou doesn’t sleep when normal people do and Amita isn’t about to call the cops unless this guy is pointing a gun at her, and she’s walking back toward a well-lit main street, silently thanking her past self for wearing oxfords, and he _is_ drunk, so he’s moving pretty slowly, and all he does when he shows up is start yelling. Some stranger girl comes up while he’s shouting that Amita has ruined his life and starts talking to her, asking whether Amita has seen any movies lately, and Amita goes along, starts talking about how she was just watching a documentary about the ocean, but it was on mute, actually, but the pie was good, and the girl acts like this is the most normal response in the world and tells her about some other movie but Andrew is still there, and then Lou comes up on her motherfucking _motorcycle_ , honestly, and makes sure the girl gets away all right, and literally she introduces herself to Andrew as the one who broke into his apartment, and then she gets Amita on the bike and takes her two blocks away. “You can stay with us,” Lou says, “but if you want to go home, we can wait him out.”

And Amita’s less upset than she thinks she should be, less upset than confused, and she nods that she’d probably rather go home, and Lou parks near her place and walks her in and offers to stay, and when Amita tells her she should really go home, she offers to stay again, and she must believe Amita’s second-round refusal because she says, “See you at dinner.”

She texts Daphne that she made it home and texts Lou a thank you and gets ready for bed, and this does not leave her in any way prepared for the number of texts she wakes up to in the morning. Debbie, Daphne, Tammy, and Constance have all asked how she’s doing; Nine Ball has asked whether she’s all right in the group text. She looks out the window and sees the guy is gone, and she replies to the group chat and just sends brown thumbs ups to the others. Daphne and Debbie both offer to meet her and take her to dinner, but her instinct is that the guy’s not coming back.

Her instinct is wrong. The knock comes around three in the afternoon. He bangs for a few minutes, and when she ignores it, he settles in to wait. She packs for a few days and texts Debbie, who’s in the alley in minutes, texting Amita that she’ll meet her outside. Somehow—Amita isn’t exactly sure how their grapevine is working right now, because none of this shit is actually coming through the group chat—she isn’t the first one at Debbie and Lou’s. Nine Ball looks up when she comes in, and Constance brandishes a phone. “Know what I want to do?” says Nine Ball. “I want to call his mom.”

“Excuse me?” Amita says, though she knows she hasn’t misheard.

“His mom.” Constance is cackling.

“Do you think that will be…effective?”

“Might,” Nine Ball says, shrugging.

“We’d have to give his phone back,” Constance says.

“I don’t need it anymore,” Nine Ball says.

“I mean, why just his mom?” says Constance.

“Let’s start with his mom,” Amita says, and Constance heads out with the phone, and Debbie shows Amita up to where she’s going to sleep, and she stays there, looking at houses she doesn’t actually want to buy to calm herself down, figuring Constance will come get her when she’s back.

But it isn’t Constance who knocks on the door frame first, it’s Daphne, and she looks actually worried. “Are you okay?” she says, still at the edge of the room, and Amita sits up and beckons her over and nods. Daphne’s arms come up around her shoulders, and Amita’s tired enough to lean forward, and she notices Daphne’s breathing is a little uneven, a little shaky.

“Hey,” she says, “it’s all right. I’m okay.”

Daphne laughs, one soft little breath out. “You’re not supposed to have to say that to me,” she says. “I was just worried about you. Sorry. I’m trying not to make this about me, I really am.”

 “You’re doing…okay,” Amita says, and they both chuckle. “Hey, I had a good time last night, though.”

Daphne pulls back from her and leans forward. “Me too,” she says, and kisses her, and Amita climbs back to lean against the wall and pulls Daphne up with her, and that’s how they are when Constance comes by.

“Dude, close your door,” she says.

“Yeah, could you get that, Constance?” Amita says, and Daphne giggles.

“We’ll wait for you,” Constance says, but Amita has more important things to worry about: even as Constance closes the door, Daphne is lying down, pulling Amita down above her, kissing the underside of her jaw.

 

“We didn’t wait for you,” Constance says when they get back downstairs in a little less makeup. Everyone is here now—even Tammy has made it in from Connecticut, and Amita can’t be sure, but she suspects that was for her. She goes to hug Tammy, and when she starts to ask, assures her she’s fine. Constance and Nine Ball are in front of the screen, half-looking, and whatever they’re watching, it’s her house.

“Amita, your neighbors have cameras everywhere,” Nine Ball says. “Thought you should know.” She probably should.

“So what’s going on?”

“Sad boy’s just sitting there,” Nine Ball says. “We called his mom when Constance got back.”

“And?”

“I said he was in front of my friend’s house, won’t leave. Told her I don’t like harassment, and if her boy’s still there at midnight, I’d send some friends to deal with him.”

“Nine Ball! You threatened her?”

“I was just going to send Constance to annoy him out of there.” Constance flashes a thumbs-up. “But maybe I didn’t need her to know that.”

“And nothing’s happened?”

“Nah, he’s gotten a couple texts, but he hasn’t answered the phone, and nobody showed up.”

“Wait, did you give her the address?”

“I mean, I figured she’d just call, but she asked for it.”

“So now we’re waiting?”

Nine Ball nods.

“And no one’s made a drinking game out of it yet?” Daphne says. They all stare at her. “What? It would be way less stressful that way.” They all look at Amita, and she shrugs an agreeing kind of shrug.

“Okay,” Constance says, “not that much stuff happens. Sometimes he gets a text, sometimes a person goes by on the street.”

“Okay, so drink when he gets a text, drink when somebody walks by if he engages with them,” Daphne says. “Finish your drink when he leaves.”

“Just like, call me over if anything interesting happens,” Amita says. “I’ll drink when you yell drink.”

So she gets wine, and she sets the table, and her friends keep an eye on the situation until dinner. Nine Ball puts a chair next to her for her laptop while they eat, and they glance over every once in a while, and privately Amita isn’t expecting much of anything to happen at all, and they’re most of the way through eating when Constance says, “Hey, check it out.”

Nine Ball brings the computer up onto the table between her and Debbie, then walks around so they can see it. Sure enough, it’s got to be the guy’s mother who gets out of the car, because his eyes get wide and he cocks his head. “I wonder whether he’s as drunk as he was last night,” Amita says, and Constance laughs.

He doesn’t get in the car at first—they can’t tell why, but Nine Ball supplies, “Yeah, I’m waiting for someone, yeah, right at my ex’s house,” which is probably about right. Then she climbs out and opens the door for him—the back door, since the passenger’s seat isn’t facing him, which has Constance howling. He doesn’t get in. Then, very suddenly, he does get in. “What’d she do, threaten to call the cops?” Nine Ball says, and no one has a better idea, but he’s gone.

“Is that it?” Amita says.

“I’ll check it out the next couple nights,” Nine Ball says. “I’ll let you know if he comes back.”

“He’s not gonna come back,” Constance says. “He didn’t even get to sit in the front. He’s beat. He’s moving back into her _basement_.”

“If you’re worried—” Debbie says.

“No, I can wait and see,” says Amita. She’ll stay here for a couple days. If this didn’t work, her friends will figure it out.


End file.
